


Finding Home

by silverpen693



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Self Confidence Issues, Twins, fears
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-16 23:07:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10581384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverpen693/pseuds/silverpen693
Summary: On board the Tempest for the first time, Sara tries to come to grips with what has happened so far.Initial exploration of what is going on in her head and an attempt to get to grips with her character.**********************************************************





	

The door whizzed as it closed behind her and Sara finally let out the breath she felt she had been holding in every since she had come round in medbay. How in hell did it come to this? Thoughts whirled like a hurricane in her head and for the first time she was alone with them. “Well, as alone as I’m ever going to be again” she thought wryly, glancing at the SAM on the desk to her right. “What in the hell was Dad thinking?” 

In the past couple of hours she had been rushed out of medbay, told she was now in charge of the job her father had been prepping for all his life, that an AI had taken permanent residence inside her, that her brother - that Scott - still was in a coma, had to deal with snotty humans who seemed to blame her for not arriving earlier and officious aliens who seemed to want her to deal with all the problems that they had created for themselves as well as the ones brought about by the scourge and no golden worlds, and had to process that she had come close to dying twice in less than 24 hours. She let out a shaky laugh that died in the air as soon as it was born.

Running her hand through her hair she took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, feeling her heart thudding hard against her chest and the surge of adrenaline. Where the hell was she even supposed to start? “One thing at a time, Sara” she murmured shakily. To distract herself from her incipient panic attack she walked slowly around the room, taking in the oversized cabin, the work station with it’s empty shelves and computer, the large - extremely large - bed and seating area. Considering the crew were consigned to bunk beds and there were only 2 showers and 1 toilet, much better use could really have been made of this space. She brushed the music centre controls and grimaced as she flicked through 12 different varieties of crappy electro-pop. Honestly, had the planned occupant of this room never heard of a guitar? Was this the kind of music her Dad liked?

She sat down heavily on the bed, feeling her breathing hitch and her hands start to shake. SAM lit up.  
“Sara you seem to be experiencing some symptoms of distress, perhaps you might like to send for Dr T’Pierro?”

“What I am experiencing is what any sane human would be experiencing in my situation, Sam” she snapped, annoyed at the reminder that even here she would never really be alone. “I would really like some privacy right now”

“Understood” he winked out.

Sighing, she pulled off her boots and lay down on the bed, trying to ground herself, to concentrate on the feeling of solidness against her skin. Trying to control her fear. How in hell was she going to do this. I mean, obviously having the SAM upgrades her father had so capably demonstrated on Habitat 7, would help in combat, but she was no N7. She had never lead a team. She had no idea how the hell she was supposed to make uninhabitable planets habitable. She had no idea how to find the other arks, though at least if she did one of them might have a competent pathfinder. 

She felt a surge of anger at her father. Why the hell had he dragged them all out here? It wasn’t as if he had spent much time with them for the vast majority of their lives. Even when he had moved them back to Earth, when Mom was ill, he had spent almost all of his time in his lab working on his precious SAM. And once she had died he was straight back into the lab, working round the clock on the Initiative. By the time he had called and told her that she and Scott had to come talk to them, Sara had more or less given up on ever having anything that could be called a relationship with him. She probably wouldn’t even have gone if Scott hadn’t persuaded her.

“Mom would want us to give him a chance, Sara” he wheedled.  
“You’re insane.” Sara had retorted. “HE’s the reason neither of us have a career worth talking about, you know that right? You’re gonna be stuck guarding that relay for the rest of your life and I’m never gonna be allowed within a mile of anything interesting.” The vidcall had crackled a little and Scott had shrugged, unable to deny what had been made patently obvious to them.  
“He’s the only parent we have left”  
“And he suddenly remembers he has kids after all this time?”  
“I’m not defending him, sis. But I want to hear what he has to say, and maybe to make him hear what I have to say for a change. C’mon, for me?”  
Sara had never been able to really refuse her twin when he really wanted something - especially since he so rarely asked. And now, Scott was lying still in a coma and if he died, she would be truly completely and utterly alone.

That thought - that Scott might not recover - was enough to break her fragile calm and let angry, frightened tears finally fall. 

People kept offering her condolences for her father’s death but the honest truth was that that absence was something abstract and unreal. Her dad had been gone for all her life. First of all, off fighting as an N7, working all the hours under the Citadel’s fake sun as a military attaché and his AI research, then buried in building the Initiative. His absence was expected, almost normal. She was used to being angry about that. Used to being bitter about it. What she wasn’t used to was that uncomfortable feeling underneath it. That this time he was gone because of her. That he was gone because otherwise she would have died. That maybe somewhere, underneath it all, he had actually cared. Because before that she would have been hard-pressed to believe he even remembered they existed.

She and Scott had debated what his ‘real’ motives had been in wanting them to come to Andromeda. Neither of them had completely believed it was just about wanting to keep their family together, even as a promise he had supposedly made to Mom before she died. But neither of them could come up with anything approaching a logical reason for it, given their lack of any kind of experience that would realistically offer something important to the Initiative. And with their careers patently obviously at a dead end, it had been enough to make them consider it. 

Sara smiled through her tears, remembering them sat in that old bar on Earth, talking about what Andromeda might be like. Talking about what it would be like to set foot on new worlds, maybe meet new species. Wondering what it would be like to be amongst the first, to actually be part of the lead teams in getting places ready. Wondering what it would be like to see Dad in action. For all Sara could resent her father - and she did- she was still just as in awe of his N7 ranking as Scott and their friends were. And Andromeda itself? It was adventure and excitement and the chance to be the people they wanted to be instead of the people the disgrace the Ryder name brought consigned them to. Only Scott had really understood all that. No, Scott’s absence was much much more real. 

“Godammit Scott, I need you to wake up, I can’t do this alone” she whispered. Much as each of them had railed against the expectations that twins be the same, want the same, do the same, they were undeniably closer than most of their friends and their siblings. Not because they were the same but because they never allowed other people to come between them. And, it was also undeniably true that both of them knew the other’s weaknesses and compensated for them without even thinking about it. And maybe because in some ways they were ridiculously similar. 

Scott would never let her get away with this. He would be shaking her, saying “Are you kidding? There’s a whole galaxy to explore out there and look at you, getting to explore it on the coolest ship EVER!” She smiled wryly. He would also probably be asking her to get him a date with the cute girl on the bridge. He would never have been able to resist that accent.

She wiped away the last remaining tears and sat up, smoothing her hair. It wasn’t as if she was alone. Cora had had loads of training, she would keep Sara right. And Liam’s background in crisis management would be amazing. And it wasn’t like she had to fly the ship herself. And there was a whole Nexus load of experts to help her do the science bits about making worlds liveable. Not to mention the bloody AI. All she had to do right now was go check out what had gone wrong on Eos and try to see what she could put right. If it was just Kett, she had a gun and she knew how to shoot. No way was she going to let her little brother wake up and find out she had fallen to pieces without him. He would never ever let her live it down. And she couldn’t let him down because she was all he had left now Mom was dead. Who knows, maybe she would even make her Dad - finally - proud. She grimaced, maybe that last one was a bit too much to ask.  
“Sam?”  
“Yes, Sara”  
“Could you ask the team to join me in the meeting room in an hour? I want to have a strategy meeting before we reach Eos”  
“Of course”  
Eos. A whole world she knew next to nothing about - that hardly anyone knew anything about . And even if other humans had stepped there before, no Ryder had. Scott would never live it down.


End file.
